NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Apple Pay will offer support for Hong Kong’s popular closed-loop contactless transit and retail payments card Octopus later this year, adding a much-needed service to an Apple Wallet that launched three years ago in Hong Kong for credit and debit payments at retail.
The move by Apple to support closed-loop Octopus, while not a surprise, is taking longer than expected. Apple already has the technology it needs to enable Octopus–which is based on proprietary FeliCa contactless technology–having launched the high-speed, closed-loop Suica payments service on iPhones and Apple Watches in Japan in late 2016. Suica also uses FeliCa from Japan-based Sony Corp.
In addition, Apple rival Samsung started supporting Octopus in Hong Kong 18 months ago in its Samsung Pay wallet.